Peasants, Farmers and Scientists

The author, who graduated from Wageningen University in the Netherlands in June 1967 and obtained a PhD degree there in April 1982, has spent a lifetime working in a wide range of tropical agronomy-related fields. He started his career in a cotton development project in Indonesia, lectured and carried out research at the Universities of Wageningen, Yaoundé (Cameroun) and Ibadan (Nigeria) and played a key role in the introduction of the ‘Farming Systems Research’ approach in West and Central Africa when working at the International Institute of Tropical agriculture in Ibadan. Since 1994 he has been attached to the Nedworc Foundation in the Netherlands and travelled to many African, Asian and Latin American countries to formulate, assist and evaluate agricultural research and development programmes. Dr. Mutsaers is the author and co-author of numerous scientific papers on crop physiology, crop modelling, farming systems and on-farm research, as well as several books, including two on on-farm research methodology.

What Is Tropical Agronomy?.- A Tropical Agronomist's Education.- Old and New: The 1960s and 1970s.- Farmers Are Smarter Than You Think.- Forests, Fallows and Fields.- Farmer Skills, an Elusive Property.- Mainly Technology.- Follies and Sanity of Farming Systems Research.- The Modelling Sorcerers and Their Apprentices.- Donors, Experts and Consultants.- Can African Farming Be Improved? (And Can Agronomists Help?).